Documentation: i2c: Add doc for I2C sysfs (31df7195) · Commits · EulixOS / Software / Kernel

Documentation/i2c/i2c-sysfs.rst

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		.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0

		===============
		Linux I2C Sysfs
		===============

		Overview
		========

		I2C topology can be complex because of the existence of I2C MUX
		(I2C Multiplexer). The Linux
		kernel abstracts the MUX channels into logical I2C bus numbers. However, there
		is a gap of knowledge to map from the I2C bus physical number and MUX topology
		to logical I2C bus number. This doc is aimed to fill in this gap, so the
		audience (hardware engineers and new software developers for example) can learn
		the concept of logical I2C buses in the kernel, by knowing the physical I2C
		topology and navigating through the I2C sysfs in Linux shell. This knowledge is
		useful and essential to use ``i2c-tools`` for the purpose of development and
		debugging.

		Target audience
		---------------

		People who need to use Linux shell to interact with I2C subsystem on a system
		which the Linux is running on.

		Prerequisites
		-------------

		1. Knowledge of general Linux shell file system commands and operations.

		2. General knowledge of I2C, I2C MUX and I2C topology.

		Location of I2C Sysfs
		=====================

		Typically, the Linux Sysfs filesystem is mounted at the ``/sys`` directory,
		so you can find the I2C Sysfs under ``/sys/bus/i2c/devices``
		where you can directly ``cd`` to it.
		There is a list of symbolic links under that directory. The links that
		start with ``i2c-`` are I2C buses, which may be either physical or logical. The
		other links that begin with numbers and end with numbers are I2C devices, where
		the first number is I2C bus number, and the second number is I2C address.

		Google Pixel 3 phone for example::

		blueline:/sys/bus/i2c/devices $ ls
		0-0008 0-0061 1-0028 3-0043 4-0036 4-0041 i2c-1 i2c-3
		0-000c 0-0066 2-0049 4-000b 4-0040 i2c-0 i2c-2 i2c-4

		``i2c-2`` is an I2C bus whose number is 2, and ``2-0049`` is an I2C device
		on bus 2 address 0x49 bound with a kernel driver.

		Terminologies
		=============

		First, let us define a couple of terminologies to avoid confusions in the later
		sections.

		(Physical) I2C Bus Controller
		-----------------------------

		The hardware system that the Linux kernel is running on may have multiple
		physical I2C bus controllers. The controllers are hardware and physical, and the
		system may define multiple registers in the memory space to manipulate the
		controllers. Linux kernel has I2C bus drivers under source directory
		``drivers/i2c/busses`` to translate kernel I2C API into register
		operations for different systems. This terminology is not limited to Linux
		kernel only.

		I2C Bus Physical Number
		-----------------------

		For each physical I2C bus controller, the system vendor may assign a physical
		number to each controller. For example, the first I2C bus controller which has
		the lowest register addresses may be called ``I2C-0``.

		Logical I2C Bus
		---------------

		Every I2C bus number you see in Linux I2C Sysfs is a logical I2C bus with a
		number assigned. This is similar to the fact that software code is usually
		written upon virtual memory space, instead of physical memory space.

		Each logical I2C bus may be an abstraction of a physical I2C bus controller, or
		an abstraction of a channel behind an I2C MUX. In case it is an abstraction of a
		MUX channel, whenever we access an I2C device via a such logical bus, the kernel
		will switch the I2C MUX for you to the proper channel as part of the
		abstraction.

		Physical I2C Bus
		----------------

		If the logical I2C bus is a direct abstraction of a physical I2C bus controller,
		let us call it a physical I2C bus.

		Caveat
		------

		This may be a confusing part for people who only know about the physical I2C
		design of a board. It is actually possible to rename the I2C bus physical number
		to a different number in logical I2C bus level in Device Tree Source (DTS) under
		section ``aliases``. See
		`arch/arm/boot/dts/nuvoton-npcm730-gsj.dts
		<../../arch/arm/boot/dts/nuvoton-npcm730-gsj.dts>`_
		for an example of DTS file.

		Best Practice: (To kernel software developers) It is better to keep the I2C
		bus physical number the same as their corresponding logical I2C bus number,
		instead of renaming or mapping them, so that it may be less confusing to other
		users. These physical I2C buses can be served as good starting points for I2C
		MUX fanouts. For the following examples, we will assume that the physical I2C
		bus has a number same as their I2C bus physical number.

		Walk through Logical I2C Bus
		============================

		For the following content, we will use a more complex I2C topology as an
		example. Here is a brief graph for the I2C topology. If you do not understand
		this graph at the first glance, do not be afraid to continue reading this doc
		and review it when you finish reading.

		::

		i2c-7 (physical I2C bus controller 7)
		`-- 7-0071 (4-channel I2C MUX at 0x71)
		\|-- i2c-60 (channel-0)
		\|-- i2c-73 (channel-1)
		\| \|-- 73-0040 (I2C sensor device with hwmon directory)
		\| \|-- 73-0070 (I2C MUX at 0x70, exists in DTS, but failed to probe)
		\| `-- 73-0072 (8-channel I2C MUX at 0x72)
		\| \|-- i2c-78 (channel-0)
		\| \|-- ... (channel-1...6, i2c-79...i2c-84)
		\| `-- i2c-85 (channel-7)
		\|-- i2c-86 (channel-2)
		`-- i2c-203 (channel-3)

		Distinguish Physical and Logical I2C Bus
		----------------------------------------

		One simple way to distinguish between a physical I2C bus and a logical I2C bus,
		is to read the symbolic link ``device`` under the I2C bus directory by using
		command ``ls -l`` or ``readlink``.

		An alternative symbolic link to check is ``mux_device``. This link only exists
		in logical I2C bus directory which is fanned out from another I2C bus.
		Reading this link will also tell you which I2C MUX device created
		this logical I2C bus.

		If the symbolic link points to a directory ending with ``.i2c``, it should be a
		physical I2C bus, directly abstracting a physical I2C bus controller. For
		example::

		$ readlink /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/device
		../../f0087000.i2c
		$ ls /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/mux_device
		ls: /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/mux_device: No such file or directory

		In this case, ``i2c-7`` is a physical I2C bus, so it does not have the symbolic
		link ``mux_device`` under its directory. And if the kernel software developer
		follows the common practice by not renaming physical I2C buses, this should also
		mean the physical I2C bus controller 7 of the system.

		On the other hand, if the symbolic link points to another I2C bus, the I2C bus
		presented by the current directory has to be a logical bus. The I2C bus pointed
		by the link is the parent bus which may be either a physical I2C bus or a
		logical one. In this case, the I2C bus presented by the current directory
		abstracts an I2C MUX channel under the parent bus.

		For example::

		$ readlink /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73/device
		../../i2c-7
		$ readlink /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73/mux_device
		../7-0071

		``i2c-73`` is a logical bus fanout by an I2C MUX under ``i2c-7``
		whose I2C address is 0x71.
		Whenever we access an I2C device with bus 73, the kernel will always
		switch the I2C MUX addressed 0x71 to the proper channel for you as part of the
		abstraction.

		Finding out Logical I2C Bus Number
		----------------------------------

		In this section, we will describe how to find out the logical I2C bus number
		representing certain I2C MUX channels based on the knowledge of physical
		hardware I2C topology.

		In this example, we have a system which has a physical I2C bus 7 and not renamed
		in DTS. There is a 4-channel MUX at address 0x71 on that bus. There is another
		8-channel MUX at address 0x72 behind the channel 1 of the 0x71 MUX. Let us
		navigate through Sysfs and find out the logical I2C bus number of the channel 3
		of the 0x72 MUX.

		First of all, let us go to the directory of ``i2c-7``::

		~$ cd /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7$ ls
		7-0071 i2c-60 name subsystem
		delete_device i2c-73 new_device uevent
		device i2c-86 of_node
		i2c-203 i2c-dev power

		There, we see the 0x71 MUX as ``7-0071``. Go inside it::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7$ cd 7-0071/
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/7-0071$ ls -l
		channel-0 channel-3 modalias power
		channel-1 driver name subsystem
		channel-2 idle_state of_node uevent

		Read the link ``channel-1`` using ``readlink`` or ``ls -l``::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/7-0071$ readlink channel-1
		../i2c-73

		We find out that the channel 1 of 0x71 MUX on ``i2c-7`` is assigned
		with a logical I2C bus number of 73.
		Let us continue the journey to directory ``i2c-73`` in either ways::

		# cd to i2c-73 under I2C Sysfs root
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/7-0071$ cd /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$

		# cd the channel symbolic link
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/7-0071$ cd channel-1
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/7-0071/channel-1$

		# cd the link content
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/7-0071$ cd ../i2c-73
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-7/i2c-73$

		Either ways, you will end up in the directory of ``i2c-73``. Similar to above,
		we can now find the 0x72 MUX and what logical I2C bus numbers
		that its channels are assigned::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ ls
		73-0040 device i2c-83 new_device
		73-004e i2c-78 i2c-84 of_node
		73-0050 i2c-79 i2c-85 power
		73-0070 i2c-80 i2c-dev subsystem
		73-0072 i2c-81 mux_device uevent
		delete_device i2c-82 name
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ cd 73-0072
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73/73-0072$ ls
		channel-0 channel-4 driver of_node
		channel-1 channel-5 idle_state power
		channel-2 channel-6 modalias subsystem
		channel-3 channel-7 name uevent
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73/73-0072$ readlink channel-3
		../i2c-81

		There, we find out the logical I2C bus number of the channel 3 of the 0x72 MUX
		is 81. We can later use this number to switch to its own I2C Sysfs directory or
		issue ``i2c-tools`` commands.

		Tip: Once you understand the I2C topology with MUX, command
		`i2cdetect -l
		<https://manpages.debian.org/unstable/i2c-tools/i2cdetect.8.en.html>`_
		in
		`I2C Tools
		<https://i2c.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/I2C_Tools>`_
		can give you
		an overview of the I2C topology easily, if it is available on your system. For
		example::

		$ i2cdetect -l \| grep -e '\-73' -e _7 \| sort -V
		i2c-7 i2c npcm_i2c_7 I2C adapter
		i2c-73 i2c i2c-7-mux (chan_id 1) I2C adapter
		i2c-78 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 0) I2C adapter
		i2c-79 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 1) I2C adapter
		i2c-80 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 2) I2C adapter
		i2c-81 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 3) I2C adapter
		i2c-82 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 4) I2C adapter
		i2c-83 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 5) I2C adapter
		i2c-84 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 6) I2C adapter
		i2c-85 i2c i2c-73-mux (chan_id 7) I2C adapter

		Pinned Logical I2C Bus Number
		-----------------------------

		If not specified in DTS, when an I2C MUX driver is applied and the MUX device is
		successfully probed, the kernel will assign the MUX channels with a logical bus
		number based on the current biggest logical bus number incrementally. For
		example, if the system has ``i2c-15`` as the highest logical bus number, and a
		4-channel MUX is applied successfully, we will have ``i2c-16`` for the
		MUX channel 0, and all the way to ``i2c-19`` for the MUX channel 3.

		The kernel software developer is able to pin the fanout MUX channels to a static
		logical I2C bus number in the DTS. This doc will not go through the details on
		how to implement this in DTS, but we can see an example in:
		`arch/arm/boot/dts/aspeed-bmc-facebook-wedge400.dts
		<../../arch/arm/boot/dts/aspeed-bmc-facebook-wedge400.dts>`_

		In the above example, there is an 8-channel I2C MUX at address 0x70 on physical
		I2C bus 2. The channel 2 of the MUX is defined as ``imux18`` in DTS,
		and pinned to logical I2C bus number 18 with the line of ``i2c18 = &imux18;``
		in section ``aliases``.

		Take it further, it is possible to design a logical I2C bus number schema that
		can be easily remembered by humans or calculated arithmetically. For example, we
		can pin the fanout channels of a MUX on bus 3 to start at 30. So 30 will be the
		logical bus number of the channel 0 of the MUX on bus 3, and 37 will be the
		logical bus number of the channel 7 of the MUX on bus 3.

		I2C Devices
		===========

		In previous sections, we mostly covered the I2C bus. In this section, let us see
		what we can learn from the I2C device directory whose link name is in the format
		of ``${bus}-${addr}``. The ``${bus}`` part in the name is a logical I2C bus
		decimal number, while the ``${addr}`` part is a hex number of the I2C address
		of each device.

		I2C Device Directory Content
		----------------------------

		Inside each I2C device directory, there is a file named ``name``.
		This file tells what device name it was used for the kernel driver to
		probe this device. Use command ``cat`` to read its content. For example::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ cat 73-0040/name
		ina230
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ cat 73-0070/name
		pca9546
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ cat 73-0072/name
		pca9547

		There is a symbolic link named ``driver`` to tell what Linux kernel driver was
		used to probe this device::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ readlink -f 73-0040/driver
		/sys/bus/i2c/drivers/ina2xx
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ readlink -f 73-0072/driver
		/sys/bus/i2c/drivers/pca954x

		But if the link ``driver`` does not exist at the first place,
		it may mean that the kernel driver failed to probe this device due to
		some errors. The error may be found in ``dmesg``::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ ls 73-0070/driver
		ls: 73-0070/driver: No such file or directory
		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ dmesg \| grep 73-0070
		pca954x 73-0070: probe failed
		pca954x 73-0070: probe failed

		Depending on what the I2C device is and what kernel driver was used to probe the
		device, we may have different content in the device directory.

		I2C MUX Device
		--------------

		While you may be already aware of this in previous sections, an I2C MUX device
		will have symbolic link ``channel-*`` inside its device directory.
		These symbolic links point to their logical I2C bus directories::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73$ ls -l 73-0072/channel-*
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-0 -> ../i2c-78
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-1 -> ../i2c-79
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-2 -> ../i2c-80
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-3 -> ../i2c-81
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-4 -> ../i2c-82
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-5 -> ../i2c-83
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-6 -> ../i2c-84
		lrwxrwxrwx ... 73-0072/channel-7 -> ../i2c-85

		I2C Sensor Device / Hwmon
		-------------------------

		I2C sensor device is also common to see. If they are bound by a kernel hwmon
		(Hardware Monitoring) driver successfully, you will see a ``hwmon`` directory
		inside the I2C device directory. Keep digging into it, you will find the Hwmon
		Sysfs for the I2C sensor device::

		/sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-73/73-0040/hwmon/hwmon17$ ls
		curr1_input in0_lcrit_alarm name subsystem
		device in1_crit power uevent
		in0_crit in1_crit_alarm power1_crit update_interval
		in0_crit_alarm in1_input power1_crit_alarm
		in0_input in1_lcrit power1_input
		in0_lcrit in1_lcrit_alarm shunt_resistor

		For more info on the Hwmon Sysfs, refer to the doc:

		`Naming and data format standards for sysfs files
		<../hwmon/sysfs-interface.rst>`_

		Instantiate I2C Devices in I2C Sysfs
		------------------------------------

		Refer to the doc:

		`How to instantiate I2C devices, Method 4: Instantiate from user-space
		<instantiating-devices.rst#method-4-instantiate-from-user-space>`_